Beetroot, Butternut & Chicken Salad

May I just say I’m a butternut freak, you’ve probably noticed. I post butternut recipes regularly. I guess I love it, because it looks like sunshine on your plate. Part of enjoying food is how it looks, if it’s pretty I enjoy it a whole lot more.

   

Ingredients:

300g cooked beetroot (you could buy it cooked or steam it for 15 minutes)

250g Steamed Butternut

300g baby leaf Spinach

2 Chicken Breasts cut into strips

1 tablespoon Honey

1 teaspoon Chicken Spice

Method:

Firstly coat the chicken in chicken spice and seal it into a hot frying pan. No need for oil, the honey will help the chicken to get golden brown.

Seal the flesh of the chicken and add the honey.

Fry for about 5 minutes and take off the heat. It should be cooked without being dry, nothing like dry chicken.

Now you could be creative, compile the salad in layers.

First layer will be spinach, followed by butternut and beetroot. Lastly add the chicken.

Drizzle the left over honey juice from the pan over your salad and viola; you have a tasty summer dish.

You could add pumpkin seeds, even some parmesan. I added almonds to my dish. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Warm Lettuce Salad

I saw an idea for this dish on the television, and thought is this woman insane? How on earth does fried lettuce taste. The answer? Delicious!

It sounds weird, but try it. I am a firm believer in trying everything at least once. When you fry the lettuce it gets a sweet taste. The trick is not to cook it for too long, you want your lettuce to still be a bit crisp. This is what I did:

Ingredients:

1 medium onion chopped

½ Iceberg Lettuce chopped

½ cup Frozen Peas

5ml Butter

Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

First soften the onion in a bit of boiling water in a pan.

When the water is cooked away add the butter and lettuce, stir-fry the lettuce and onion, for about 2 minutes on high heat.

Add the peas, salt and pepper.

Stir for another 2 minutes.

Take of the heat and serve warm.

Let me know what you think.

Tuna Cakes

We all know we need to eat more fish, but it gets boring. The same old fish and chips every week. So I decided to try something new. I call it, Tuna Cakes. I decided to use tuna, because it is high in omega 3 fatty acids. 

Omega 3 is such a wonderful supplement with great health benefits. It could lower cholesterol, reduce high blood pressure, ease joint pains, fight wrinkles, improve memory and could even boost your mood.

Ingredients:

200g mashed potatoes

2 tins of Tuna

1 egg

1 teaspoon parsley

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Pinch of Paprika (You could add more if you like hot food)

Salt to taste.

Method:

Add all the ingredients together, mix well.

Add about 5ml of olive oil in a very hot pan.

Scoop a tablespoon of the mixture into the pan and press down to flatten it slightly.

Leave it for about 3 minutes per side, or until it’s golden brown.

This mixture will make about 8 fish cakes.

I served these Tuna cakes with some sweet chilli sauce. You could serve this hot or cold, next time I might add a bit of spring onion to the mixture. Overall this is a healthy fun recipe, I hope you enjoy it!

Honey Peach Chicken Skewers

It’s summer time again, well almost. This time of year South-African’s love to braai (barbeque). Sometimes I get tired of the same old thing over and over again. So we tried something new for the grill. It’s quick and easy to make, and tastes real good. Hope you enjoy it.

   

Honey Peach Chicken Skewers

Makes 4 skewers

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts cubed

250g Dried peaches

60ml Honey slightly warmed in the microwave to make it runny

Chicken spice

You will also need skewers.

Method:

Stack the chicken and peaches on the skewer.

Baste the chicken with Honey and lightly spice it with the chicken spice.

Braai until cooked, it will take about 10 – 15 minutes.

Enjoy with summer salads.

Butternut and Chicken Quiche

It’s almost summer time again. The time of year where you never feel like cooked food, and you definitely don’t want to be stuck in the kitchen when you could be enjoying the sun. This is why I think quiche is the perfect summer dish. Its light and you can serve it hot or cold. You can keep it in the fridge and just add salad to complete the meal.

Quiche is versatile, you can add almost any combination and it will still taste divine! My favourite combo’s are spinach and feta, and butternut and chicken.

Today I want to share my Butternut and chicken recipe.

You’ll need to start with the crust. They say woman are better pastry chefs, because their hands are colder :). Cold is indeed the trick to a light and flaky pastry. Try to have all your ingredients as cold as possible.

Butternut and Chicken Quiche

 

Pastry - You will need:

220g Cake Flour

Pinch of salt

180g Room temperature Butter

1 egg yolk

Cold water

Sift flour and salt, and the butter. Gently rub the butter unto the flour using your fingertips, don’t overwork it.

Add the egg yolk and just enough cold water to make a stiff dough. Shape into a ball and wrap your pastry in cling wrap and leave in the fridge to chill for at least half an hour.

Again the key is not to over work the pastry, and to keep it chilled.

Now is the time you can start cooking the butternut and chicken for the filling.

Take the pastry out of the fridge and place it on a lightly floured surface.

Lightly flour the pastry and gently start to roll the pastry out.

It should be about 5mm thick, and big enough to fit a 24cm pie dish.

Place it in a dish, prick it with a fork and bake blind, (this means put some wax paper over your pastry and fill the dish with some beans or rice, it will help to keep the pastry’s shape) for 10 minutes in a 200 degrees Celsius oven.

Uncover the pastry and bake for another 7 minutes.

Your pastry is now ready to be filled with yummy ingredients.

Filling - You will need:

200g of cooked butternut,

2 Cooked chicken breasts flaked,

Some mushrooms thinly sliced,

1 fried onion,

Some chives, salt and pepper,

3 eggs + the left over egg white used in the pastry,

400ml of low fat Milk

Start by placing the fried onion all over the bottom of the pastry. Now layer the butternut, chives and chicken. Make sure that there’s an even spread of ingredients.

Now mix the eggs, milk, salt and pepper together. Pour this mixture over the filling ingredients.

Now bake the quiche in a 180 degrees Celsius oven for 30min or until golden brown.

The quiche will need to cool slightly; this will just help it set better.

There you have it, a basic quiche recipe. You can now make your own combination by replacing the butternut and chicken with your own ingredients, add more spices, try different things. You can even replace some of the milk with cream for a richer quiche.

Have fun!